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“These are a misuse of oral history and oral tradition. And they weren't recorded in documents because no one wanted there to be Indigenous people, but we know who we are because we have these stories,’ ” Leroux said. “They will often say, ‘Well, you know, our ancestors had to hide and they weren't able to be who they really were because of racism. And Odanak First Nation point to numerous photographs, documents and news articles from that era showing Abenaki families living publicly and running businesses in Vermont and New Hampshire.Ĭanadian scholar Darryl Leroux, who studies false claims of Indigeneity, including among groups in New England, said these types of claims are not uncommon. Some scholars and the Vermont Attorney General’s office say there is no evidence Abenaki people were in hiding or were targets of the Eugenics Survey of Vermont. They often point to a government-sanctioned eugenics effort in Vermont in the early 20th century as the reason their ancestors hid their identities and why there are no formal records identifying them as Abenaki. Gould and other members of the Nulhegan Band - including the group’s chief, Don Stevens - claim those descriptions are actually coded language for Abenaki people who went into hiding. Gould said she concluded her family was Abenaki after she found letters and newspaper clippings describing relatives on her mother’s side as living a nomadic “gypsy” lifestyle in the 19th and 20th centuries. The records don't make it clear what the ethnology is.” you're having to peck through records in New England, especially where sometimes it was a concerted effort and other times - whatever, it just was ignorance. “Native families are hard to trace, especially the ones that didn't go to a reserve,” Gould said. “And the actual communities who have lived through colonization and all of the traumas of residential school displacement, we get silenced yet again.”Īsked by NHPR about her family history, Gould provided a copy of her mother’s birth certificate listing her mother’s race as “Native American.” But Gould also said she petitioned the state of New Hampshire to change her mother’s race from “white,” as it was originally recorded, after doing genealogical research into her family. if that is going to drive the discourse and representation of Indigenous people, then anyone - many, many people - can claim to be Indigenous,” said Mali Obomsawin, a citizen of Odanak First Nation, who grew up in New Hampshire and now lives in Maine. “If this definition of indigeneity that can reach back 400 years and exploit an ancestor that may have been Indigenous.
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Leaders at Odanak First Nation say people who claim to represent Abenaki people but who lack any authentic connection to the tribal nation - historical or contemporary - are harming the Abenaki community. The tribe’s historic homeland stretches across the Canadian border into New England, with members currently living in New Hampshire and Vermont, though they are not formally recognized by the U.S. Odanak is one of two Abenaki First Nations formally recognized by the Canadian government. Odanak First Nation asserts many members and leaders of those groups have no Abenaki ancestors. But her new public role, and her effort to win official recognition for her tribe, have shined a new light on a longstanding controversy around the question of who has the authority to represent the Abenaki community.įor years, leaders of Odanak First Nation, an Abenaki nation based in Canada with historic ties to Northern New England, have spoken out about the Nulhegan Band and another New Hampshire-based group claiming to represent Indigenous peoples, the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook Abenaki People.
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Gould’s bill stalled in the House about a month later. Under the language of the resolution, which would have made the Nulhegan Band New Hampshire’s first recognized tribe, the group would become eligible for federal housing funding for tribes and the right to sell arts and crafts as “Indian-made,” among other benefits Sherry Gould of Merrimack District 8 at the New Hampshire State House on her first day in the Legislature in January 2023.